I'm aware everyone is losing utility. Shadow's utility through Divine Star alone had potential to cause shadow stacking in favor of dropping an entire healer. I mean, just look at it! Even during Norushen progression (you know, the strat where you never went down and just burned him) was made so much easier by having multiple shadow priests with DS, and they eventually changed the fight to where you had to go down to complete the encounter.

What I'm saying that in the grand scheme of utility, had Shadow had higher DPS outputs, it would have been a problem for healer spots in raid. Shadow's DPS was limited by its utility in a way no other spec was.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you. I'm not sad about the removal of Shadow's utility. I'm incredibly happy because it means we'll finally be allowed to do more damage.

In terms of single target DPS, Enh is probably 3rd out of all specs, behind only Feral and Aff. Perhaps you meant Ele? Because Ele has a different problem of its own. Their damage is limited because they can pretty much cast everything while moving, and just macro SWG to Ascendance to solve that problem. Couple their mastery with their cast on move and bursty-ness from Lava Surge procs results in Blizzard tying their own hands in terms of being able to raise Ele's DPS. While Ancestral Guidance and HTT are pretty amazing (or even Healing Rain for Enh if you did in fact mean them!), they're not the reason Ele's dps is being held back. Not at all like Divine Star is holding Shadow back.

I meant enh. Enh has realistically the same utility than shadow sans mass dispel, just better (AG >>> VE), and more reliable (HST and HR's CDs are lower than any t90 priest talent) without the dps loss.

So the "limited for utility" argument is moot. Shadow's damage was limited during MoP for population purposes, with the excuse of utility.

I meant enh. Enh has realistically the same utility than shadow sans mass dispel, just better (AG >>> VE), and more reliable (HST and HR's CDs are lower than any t90 priest talent) without the dps loss.

So the "limited for utility" argument is moot. Shadow's damage was limited during MoP for population purposes, with the excuse of utility.

And HST and HR vs DS? Is that even a fair comparison at all? Even a raw healing log of an Enh shaman on Thok doesn't compare to the healing of a Shadow priest on Thok. Heck, all of the Enh shaman's effective healing is BARELY beating the entire effective healing of DS alone (and the Enh's kill time was longer, giving them even more chances to do more total healing!).

Maybe you can argue that Enh is better on spread fights, because it's kind of true. But they're never miles ahead of shadow like shadow is miles ahead of them on stacking fights.

Sorry, you cannot compare 2 VE from 2 Shadow Priests from a log to 2 Enhancement Shaman AG from the same log and then conclude one is stronger than the other. The healing both do depends on how much they are needed, the procs the player has, and what part of their rotation they are capable of using as well as are using.

I agree what Deidre says makes the most sense (we cannot know for sure); the excuse was our utility and off healing, but realistically we were just being put in The Dark Below (meter-wise) because of population reasons. Retribution would also fit this description.

I never said it was bad. It's better than dps tranquilty unless using HotW and has more uses per fight; and as an oh-shit button, yes, it might be slightly better than AG. Properly used as a planned healing CD, AG will heal at least twice as VE (and doing a truckload more dps while at it).

Originally Posted by Steehl

And HST and HR vs DS? Is that even a fair comparison at all? Even a raw healing log of an Enh shaman on Thok doesn't compare to the healing of a Shadow priest on Thok. Heck, all of the Enh shaman's effective healing is BARELY beating the entire effective healing of DS alone (and the Enh's kill time was longer, giving them even more chances to do more total healing!).

Due to the fights' mechanics, Thok and Garrosh are the ONLY instances where DS is better than a shaman's off-healing. On ANY other fight DS will either overheal unless you have very crappy healers, or heal less due to positioning.